IT Investments: 5 Common Mistakes - 0 views
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As companies grow and their finances improve, smart management teams often look to invest in technologies that improve operations, worker productivity, and market knowledge.
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If you haven't done a big IT project in a while, the benefits can be significant, but the risks are higher than many other types of investments.
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People spend too much time building a detailed business case and associated financials that look great but have really bad assumptions.
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It can take a lot of time and effort for a user group that has operated on the same system for a long time to be more productive on new systems; this could hurt company performance while they get up to speed.
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Taking shortcuts during the product selection process has been the death knell for many technology investments.
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IT projects are notorious for being over budget, so make sure you build in appropriate risk and contingency.
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A new system -- while less expensive and more nimble upfront -- may impact productivity to the point that the savings are negated.
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Sometimes even basic dependencies get missed, such as deploying an important new piece of software and finding it doesn't support the operating systems or web browser versions that most employees use.
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No Clear Understanding of Technology Integration It is essential that you know and clearly understand how new technology will interact and connect with the already existing systems that you may have. Will some will work perfectly with what you already have, others will not so it is important that you make note of this beforehand.
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It's critical that you understand how the technology you're investing in interrelates with technology you already have.
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Open source software, for example, may tend to have a low upfront cost, but the labor needed to support the system over the long term could be hard to find or expensive in the future.
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If your IT team is going to use an open source tool, you need to have short- and long-term alternatives mapped out if support isn't available or compatible down the road with other proprietary systems.